Amok Interlude
by Aconitum-Napellus
Summary: Spock/Chapel. Mature Content. An extension of the Star Trek episode Amok Time. Maybe this explains why Spock got over his pon farr so easily.
1. Part 1

Rating: 18

Pairing: Spock/Chapel

Part 1

She came into his room despite his not answering the doorchime, telling herself that it was all right – as a medical professional it was her duty to check on him, in case he was not answering because of some drastic incapacitation. The heat in there hit her like opening an oven door. He usually kept his quarters at a happy medium between ship temperature and Vulcan normal, but he had obviously dialled it all the way up to achieve some level of comfort in his desperate condition. She rounded the screen into the dim, red-draped confines of his sleeping area and saw him there, curled on the bed, motionless in sleep. He was still wearing his uniform and boots, lying on top of the covers as if he had lain down with no intention of staying for long. The sight of him sent thrills through her – it always did. She had to remind herself that he was ill, and she should be focussing on making him well, not on the perfect curves of his buttocks, the sleekness of his hair, the graceful lines of his arms and hands.

She moved round to the other side of his bed. His body seemed almost relaxed, but she could see by the small grimaces on his face that even in sleep his mind was still tormenting him. She reached out, struck by the sudden urge to smooth his hair, to soothe him back into a deeper sleep – but she couldn't quite make herself touch him, fearful of him waking, furious and uncontrolled as she had seen him before. She clenched her fist, and turned to go.

*****

Spock drifted back into a dim awareness of his quarters, muddled by a dream that had seemed as vivid as reality a moment ago, but now was starting to lose any of the sense it had contained. *_She*_ had been in it, speaking to him, but his ears had been ringing with the overwhelming sickness of pon farr, and he had not been able to hear a word she was saying. He was watching her lips move, desperately trying to read what she was saying, but T'Pring was behind him – a seven year old, proud, intense T'Pring, touching him with icy fingers, drawing him away.

He came back into wakefulness swiftly, the gnawing aches and shivers of pon farr claiming him again, and his hyper-alert senses picked up on the scent of her, a terrible, animal part of him giving him awareness of the presence of *_woman*_ before he even knew that it was *_her*_. His skin tingled with a need to be surrounded by her. But he couldn't… He made a tremendous effort, tightening his muscles, snapping down his control over his biological urges, and sitting up swiftly to see her there, just across the room from him. He had no idea what she was doing here in his room. It was enough that she was there, and he didn't have the mental resources to question the fortuity of her presence.

'Miss Chapel,' he said. Thankfully his voice was steady – almost normal – even though the confession he was about to make was not. 'I had – a most startling dream. You were trying to tell me something, but I couldn't hear you.'

He stood up, and suddenly his rigid control let him down, and he stumbled as if the floor had moved under his feet. She stepped forward as if to help him, but he held his hand out to stop her. If she touched him now, he didn't think he could resist her. But – should he even resist her? Every fibre of his biological being was urging him to give in and take her. And he could see it in her, too, without any prompting from hormones or biological cycles. All she wanted to do was take hold of him and give him comfort. It was so *_stupid*_ that he was stopping himself. So contrary to logic, to common sense, to everything. So stupid to die for the sake of resisting something both of them wanted.

'It would be illogical for us to protest against our natures, don't you think?' he said softly. He had to restrain the urgency he felt, to keep it from his voice.

'I – don't understand,' she faltered. She was crying. It seemed that everything about her was calculated to entice him at the moment. They needed each other. It was so obvious. But he didn't know what to say, how to make her understand what he needed, how to explain to her that the urgings of biology were relaxing his inhibitions, but not entirely creating his desires.

'Your face is wet,' he said, reaching out to wipe a tear from her cheek. Just that swift touch gave him a second's access to the turmoil in her head. She too was afraid of taking advantage, afraid of giving in to something she had held inside herself for so long, afraid of rejection, afraid of acceptance.

'I came to tell you that we are bound for Vulcan,' she said. 'We'll be there in just a few days.'

Spock nodded, moving his fingers over the dampness of her tear on his hand. 'Vulcan,' he said. The word seemed like a curse to him right now. There was Vulcan, arid, hot, unfeeling, just like T'Pring. And then there on his hand was the cool dampness of Christine's tears, with the same chemical content as Earth's oceans. He couldn't imagine T'Pring ever crying, ever needing his comfort. She needed him for nothing. The deepest irony was that such emotional, biological urges were drawing him back to a place and a person that were completely unmoved by such things. And now Christine was turning away from him. He didn't know what to say…

'Miss Chapel,' he said.

She stopped, but she didn't turn. He could see her distress in the set of her shoulders. 'My name is Christine.'

'Yes, I know, Christine,' he said. There was only one thing he could think of to make her return, to stay with him for long enough to broach what he desired. 'Would you make me some of that plomeek soup?' he asked hesitantly.

The smile lit up her face like sunshine despite, or perhaps because, of her tears. 'Oh, I would be very glad to do that, Mr. Spock!' she said earnestly.

She left the room with his words of earlier tumbling through her head. *_It is undignified for a woman to play servant to a man who is not hers_…* Kirk had told her that, word for word, as he had tried to calm her bewilderment at his anger. But he had specifically requested that she serve him…

No. No, he was just hungry. He was ill, and he hadn't eaten for days, and it was logical to accept an offer of food in his condition. She couldn't let herself think like that. She had been fooled by her emotions too many times before.

******

When she re-entered the room he was sitting behind his desk, trying to look composed, struggling to hold himself still. But his hands were betraying him again. He was twisting them in his lap, pulling and squeezing at his fingers, and they began shaking every time he tried to relax them. He barely reacted to her presence, and then jumped as if startled when she put the bowl down on his desk.

'Your soup,' she said softly.

'Yes,' he said confusedly. He looked as if he could barely focus. He glanced up briefly, seeming to come back to himself enough to say, 'Sit.'

He reached out and picked up the spoon, but his hand was shaking too much and it clattered against the side of the bowl. Christine sat down silently opposite him, resisting the urge to offer help. He put the spoon down and picked the bowl up with both hands, holding it so tightly she expected the ceramic to shatter. He brought it to his lips and drank, draining the bowl almost without realising it. He put it down shakily, and touched his napkin to his lips, then looked up to see that she was watching his every movement.

'Better?' she asked him with a smile.

He nodded silently. 'To an extent.'

'You said before that it wasn't dignified for a woman to serve food to a man when she wasn't his,' she reminded him softly.

'That is true. Did the captain repeat – '

'He explained what you'd said to him – just that, nothing else. I was upset.'

'Ah…' Spock said slowly. 'Yes, I am sorry. I was not in control…'

'I know… Then – have I shown myself to be undignified?' she asked carefully. It was as close as she could come to asking him directly what he meant by inviting her back here.

'I – would not ask you to do anything without dignity, Christine,' Spock said slowly, his eyes focussed on the desk again. 'But – '

'But – ' she prompted him.

'I need to speak plainly,' he said. 'I – need to speak to you about things and feelings that I would never normally voice. I – c-cannot cloak this in overtures and flattery. I cannot be so insincere.'

'I would never expect you to,' she said softly.

'I *_need*_ – intercourse,' he said with great reluctance. 'This condition will kill me. I need intercourse with a female,' he continued. 'But – I *_desire*_ intercourse – with you. Your willingness – is an assumption on my part.'

She remained silent, unsure of what to say that would not make her sound like a crazed schoolgirl living out her fantasy. This situation was too serious for that.

'Do you understand what I am saying, Christine?' he asked her.

'Yes, I think so,' she nodded. 'I – would normally wait a little longer in a relationship before getting to that – but – it isn't logical to let you die for the sake of my modesty.'

'You must understand,' he said with difficulty, 'that I am not operating within usual parameters.' Each word sounded considered, worked out before he allowed his mouth to form the sounds.

'Yes, I know,' she nodded soberly. She didn't have a full medical understanding of his condition, but it was obvious what it was that was bothering him.

'I am – struggling – to control my – needs,' he continued, his eyes fixed on the desk before him. Then finally he looked up, with a look in his dark eyes that pierced her to the soul. 'I – do not choose you simply because you are woman, Christine,' he said hoarsely. 'I do not choose you simply out of necessity.'

'But – you do need me,' she finished for him softly. 'I understand what you need to do. You can't get to Vulcan in time. It's impossible.'

'It – will not be enough – to mate with one unbonded to me,' he continued. 'Mere release of fluid is certainly not enough. I – have learnt it provides a very fleeting relief. But to mate with you – will undoubtedly alleviate the symptoms – long enough for me to reach my planet.'

'And you have – something arranged there,' she said.

He nodded tightly, not looking at her face. She imagined him returning to Vulcan to some kind of logically arranged sexual encounter – an anonymous woman who would step forward merely to satisfy his crazed biological urge. She couldn't bear the depths of indignity that would hold for him.

'There are – many things that I desire – that my species, my discipline, forbid me to have,' he continued. 'My – life is bound by rules that I cannot break. But – I *_want*_ to break them,' he said earnestly, meeting her eyes again.

'Mr Spock,' she said softly. She wanted to reach out to his hand, but she was afraid of what touch might do to him in his current condition. 'It's all right – I understand. You're afraid I'll think you're taking advantage of my feelings for you – but you're saying that you share the same feelings.'

He nodded tightly, a world of pain in his eyes.

'But afterwards, when you're recovered, you'll be bound by logic again, and you won't be able to acknowledge those feelings.'

'It – will be far more difficult,' he said with tight control.

'But we're not in the afterwards. We're in the now. We can leave those problems for later, can't we?'

He nodded, the relief of her understanding seeming to wash through him, relaxing every muscle just a little.

'I am – controlling myself with great difficulty,' he told her. 'I am afraid that when I – relinquish that control – that I may – I may hurt you, unintentionally.'

'It's all right,' she said softly, reaching out finally to touch his hand. His fingers spasmed, seeming to burn under hers. 'I'm friends with the ship's doctor, you know,' she said with a smile. 'I have a good health plan.'

A noise escaped Spock that was almost a laugh. 'I – would be interested in hearing you explain to McCoy how you sustained your injuries.'

'Don't worry,' she told him softly. 'Let go. I'm ready to do whatever you want to do.'

Spock breathed in deeply, a tremor running through his body. He clenched his hands, then looked up again, fire burning in his eyes. 'Remove your clothes,' he said, a new timbre to his voice.

She moved her hands to obey him, tingling excitement surging through her at the primal tone of command in his voice. He stood, watching her from the other side of the desk even as he stripped his own clothes from his body, ripping fastenings in the fumbling to remove them. She gasped in breath as she saw him, his entire body sheened with sweat, his muscles taut like a racehorse waiting to run. If she had had any doubts, she lost them at that moment.

'Bed,' Spock commanded, his voice shaking. 'Do not make me take you on the floor.'

She knew the anger in his voice was anger at his own lack of control. Before she had time to move he had come to her, as swiftly as if he had passed through the desk instead of round it, and had picked her up in his arms and thrust her onto the bed. His skin seemed to burn on hers with fevered heat.

Then he stood for a few moments, staring down at her naked body, breathing deep, slow breaths in an attempt at control. He was already erect, his penis visibly pulsing with the force of blood in it, seeming to radiate heat even from where she lay. It seemed an amazing thing to her eyes, marbled with the green of his blood and straining with hardness, calling out for relief. She wanted to touch it, to put her mouth on it, to cool it with her tongue and surround it with her body. She was the one who finally broke, whispering, 'Please, come…' Even without any of the drawn out stimulation of foreplay she was moist and ready, throbbing with need. The force of his desire was infectious.

And then suddenly he was upon her, his fevered body covering hers, the girth of his erection pushing into her. A groan of need beginning to be satiated was forced from his lips as he pushed home and he began to thrust, slamming himself against her in his desperate need to achieve satisfaction, unconscious of anything but that one place that he needed. And then he convulsed with climax, crying out inarticulate sounds of gratification as he stilled inside her body.

A terrible, insecure part of her expected him to pull away from her at that moment and order her to put her clothes back on and leave. No matter how good it had felt for her, it was as if she hadn't been there for him. But he didn't leave. The urgency seemed to have gone, but he was still governed by desire – a more emotional and less biological desire. He pressed his lips down over hers, opening her mouth with his seeking tongue, tasting her, moving his mouth over her lips and cheeks and neck as if he was trying to consume as much of her as possible. His hands seemed to be everywhere, exploring her breasts, her flanks, the sleek lines of her neck and shoulders. His fingers brushed over her temples, and she was suddenly overwhelmed with an instant of insight into the turmoil in his mind – a hot, whirling confusion of need and desire and – needle-sharp regret for the feelings he could not normally acknowledge.

And then suddenly he had moved from between her legs and pressed his mouth to her there like a starving man, sucking her into him, pushing his tongue insistently through gullies and into the dark warmth of her vagina, heedless of the seed he had already left there. He pulsed over the centre of her, and she gasped, writhing with a pleasure that was too sharp to bear. He moved his mouth upwards, his teeth grazing over her flat stomach, his tongue tasting her skin, seeking upwards until it found her breasts. He sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, moulding it to a stiff point, his hand massaging her other breast, then moving down between her legs, then back up again, trying to take in as much of her as possible.

She reached out to touch his penis, finding it engorged again, almost as hard as before. She pumped her hand on it, and he moaned aloud, shuddering with the desires that were running through him. And then he was on her again, taking her again, but this time with enough consciousness in his mind to allow him to kiss her lips and neck as he thrust, plunging his tongue into her mouth even as he plunged his hardness into her below. And then he spasmed with orgasm again, moaning with unrestrained relief, and she cried out aloud, her pillowing muscles clenching at his flesh inside her.

He took her six more times before the fevered need in him began to wane, and she lay exhausted in the ruin of his bedclothes, sweat both his and hers trickling down her sides and breasts and thighs. He lay over her, heaving breath into his lungs, his cheek against hers, his hair slicked across his forehead with sweat and his hands limp on the blanket beneath them.

Finally, he murmured, 'You have saved me, Christine.'

She knew he meant that literally. She wished she knew if he meant it metaphorically as well. She lay still, breathing shallow breaths, suddenly terribly aware of the reality of her situation. Here she was, pinned under the fevered, naked body of a man she had spent years loving distantly, but had never once touched in consenting passion. Yes, she had seen him naked before, seen him vulnerable – but always with the glass wall of the nurse-patient relationship between them. Otherwise he had always been distant, so terribly controlled, so pristine and perfect and in command. Now all of that was undone. She could feel his length along hers, the sweat-dampened hair on his legs and chest itching her skin, his collarbones pressing against hers. She could feel the beginnings of stubble on his usually immaculately shaven cheek. She could feel all those real, animal things of him, and she still loved him – but all she could feel from his unguarded mind was a burning confusion of emotion, and she couldn't pick love out from that at all.

She moved her hand on his back, then stretched herself a little under his weight, but there was no reaction from him. He was exhausted almost to the point of falling asleep, but she could still feel the tension of his sickness vibrating through his muscles. Physicality seemed to be rushing back to her. She had been here for hours. She was aching with tiredness, and *_hungry*_, and – suddenly uncertain.

'What now?' she asked, so faintly she almost could not hear it herself.

He stirred himself, rolling slowly onto his side, his wet skin peeling away from hers. She was suddenly chilled as the air hit her. He exhaled – a long sound filled with a sense of regret.

'I don't wish for a *_now*_,' he said in a voice low with something close to anger. 'No past, no present – no future. Just let me be.'

'You want me to go,' she said, trying to keep hurt from her voice. She had known the parameters of this encounter before she began it.

'*_No*_,' he said irritably. 'No, I don't want you to go. Just be silent, as a woman sh- ' He bit his lips over his words, trembling, making an obvious effort to control his emotions. 'I – don't wish to talk,' he said slowly. 'I don't wish to acknowledge reality – just yet.'

'It will come, Spock,' she said pragmatically. Perhaps she shouldn't have spoken, but she was used to having to stay aware of the realities of situations.

'*_Not*_ now,' he said, his voice shaking and his eyes closed. She turned her head to study him more closely, staring at the dark edges of his eyelids where his black eyelashes entered the skin. He was fighting to keep his face relaxed, even now. She rolled onto her side to face him, putting her hand lightly on her arm. He flinched like one suffering the sensitivity brought by a fever.

'I'm sorry,' she said softly.

He breathed in a long, deep breath, and then held it, sitting up in one swift movement. Then he exhaled, opening his eyes and forcing himself to fix his dark gaze on hers. He still looked troubled, distracted by a thousand different irritations – but there was a deeper level of sanity in his eyes than there had been before.

'You have brought me respite,' he said in an earnest voice. 'And yet – I find myself in the ironic position that your treatment makes me ever more unwilling to undergo that for which you have saved me.'

'What have I saved you for, Spock?' she asked curiously. 'What is there waiting for you on Vulcan? Do they have Healers who can help you?'

Spock's face twitched momentarily. 'Of a kind,' he said darkly. 'Rest assured, there is one waiting who has the power to relieve me of my symptoms. But – I would rather have *_you*_ treat me to full health.'

'But I *_can't*_,' she said softly. 'You told me that yourself. That was true, wasn't it?'

He saw the longing in her eyes, begging him to say, *_no, it wasn't true, it was the sickness confusing me, causing me to lie*_. But it was not in him to lie to her, and he shook his head slowly. 'You have offered me a palliative, but you cannot treat me. As a Vulcan, I may have certain controls over my body, but – I cannot change this any more than I can change the chemical composition of my blood, or the pigmentation of my skin. I am – truly trapped by my own biology.'

He slumped a little, rubbing his hands over his face tiredly. Just that short minute of control he had forced upon himself had exhausted him. He looked about himself almost in bewilderment, his eyes falling on the jumble of clothes and coverings about the bed. He saw her uniform dress and picked it up, moving it almost wistfully through his fingers. Then control came back to him again, and he looked up, mustering as much dignity as a naked and unwell Vulcan could.

'I have taken up too much of your time, Miss Chapel,' he said carefully, holding the dress out to her but looking very much as if he did not want her to take it.

She half-smiled. After everything Spock had just done with her she didn't think she *_could_* feel self-conscious about her nakedness in front of him. He obviously felt more self-conscious of it than she did.

'I don't know about Vulcan etiquette, Mr Spock,' she said, 'but it's not polite in human circles to throw a lady out once you've got what you wanted.'

He straightened, one eyebrow raising in an indignance that almost looked normal for him – but it was almost immediately replaced with a more unusual look of deep shame. 'I did not intend offence,' he said. 'I didn't believe you would wish to stay. I have – disgraced myself before you. Lost control…'

She locked eyes with his, finally allowing some real anger to reach the surface. 'Mr Spock, I have seen you unconscious, naked, battered, broken. I've treated you when you were delirious, completely out of control. Have you forgotten Deneva? When you practically threw me across the room because you couldn't control the pain you were in?'

Spock looked down at that, new shame on his face.

'I have seen you blind and scared. I've seen you out of your head on alien spores and alien viruses. I've seen you mad as hell, miserable, ecstatic, despite of all you say about discipline and logic. And I've never minded, one bit, except for hating to see you in pain. How could you possibly disgrace yourself before me?'

He looked up again. 'Do you understand how terribly this time undoes the male of my species?'

'*_Yes*_,' she said intently. 'But I also understand that you were afraid you would lose control so far that you would hurt me – but you didn't, did you?' She held out her arms to him. 'Do you see any bruises here? Scratches even?'

Spock sighed, shaking his head. He looked for a moment as if he was about to take hold of her hands, but then he clenched his in his lap instead, seeming to undergo a moment of confusion. He looked down at the floor, picked up his trousers – and then dropped them again when he realised that the zipper was pulled almost clean out of the seams.

'Give me some credit, Mr Spock,' she said more softly. '*_Allow* _me the privilege of seeing this side of you. I'm a nurse, and I'm a biochemist too – I know better than anyone that sometimes you can't escape biology.' She touched a hand to his cheek, looking deeply into his eyes and not flinching from the look of contrite emotion there. 'You're tired, Mr Spock. You're exhausted. Let yourself sleep.'

Spock pressed his lips together, and nodded.

'Perhaps, when I wake – ' he began.

'You're exhausted. There's a high chance that when you wake, we'll be at Vulcan,' she reminded him softly.

His face blanked momentarily as if he was trying to suppress an inappropriate reaction. Then he nodded.

'Then perhaps, when I return…'

******


	2. Part 2

Rating: 18

Pairing: Spock/Chapel

Part 2

When he woke, he was alone. He had no idea how many hours or even days he had slept. The mess of clothes on the floor was gone, and the blankets were folded neatly across the bottom of the mattress, and there was a fresh, folded uniform sitting on the chair beside the bed. He realised that it was the intercom that had woken him, and he reached out to press the button, as much to stop the insistent beeping as anything else. His hands were shaking again.

'Yes,' he said tiredly. He could feel the burning setting up again in his bones and blood. He didn't think he could take any more needless distractions without breaking down into fury again. How many Vulcans went through this, he wondered. How many waited almost to the point of self-destruction, instead of having some logically arranged encounter the instant the first symptom appeared? Had his father ever felt this aching, shivering, debilitating pain, or the crazed burning in his brain?

He realised he hadn't been listening to a word said to him through the intercom.

'I am sorry,' he said. 'Please repeat.'

'We are an hour from Vulcan, Mr Spock,' Lieutenant Uhura said with a tone of infinite patience. 'Captain wanted me to let you know.'

'Thank you, Lieutenant,' Spock said wearily. 'Spock out.'

On a whim he opened a channel to Nurse Chapel's quarters, but there was no reply, and he had no intention of embarrassing either of them by calling sick bay. He closed his eyes and opened them again, gazing at the intercom in gratitude for it being voice-only. He had forgotten that he was still naked, unwashed, his body hair stuck to his skin in dried curls where the sweat had evaporated. His hand rasped on his chin against stubble, and his head-hair was unusually tousled, matted like the rest of him with dried sweat. What a picture he must have presented…

He swallowed hard. His mouth was so dry his tongue felt twice its normal size, and his throat was sore as if he had been screaming. He reached out unthinkingly to take a gulp from the glass of water beside his bed, before realising that *_she_* must have left it there for just that moment. He could still taste her in his mouth, the flavours only intensified by the water he had just swallowed. The taste made his mind cloud over with need, and he hated himself for the fact that the need was not for her, but just for any female. She had helped him – the evidence of that was the fact that he was not dead – but the burning was coming back, as strong as ever.

He gathered together his strength, standing and trying to muster as much control as possible to quell the shaking in his hands and arms, the insistent, irritable twitches of his face and neck. He noticed small things as he looked around his cabin – the fact that the bowl of soup had been cleaned away, the few detached shards of his crushed computer screen removed, the surfaces cleaned and objects put back where they belonged. It smelt clean in here, rather than the air being suffused with the week-long stench of fever-sweat and uncleanliness. He had not had the presence of mind to turn on the air-conditioning, but she obviously had.

He pulled his thoughts together. An hour. He had an hour to make himself presentable, and the more he dwelled on her the more he undid his ability to control.

He moved into the bathroom that he shared with the captain. Here, at least, had stayed relatively ordered, with Kirk to watch over it. Jim must have wondered over the past week what on earth had happened to his impeccable first officer to make him so careless.

_*She* _had been in here too. The towels were slightly damp on the rail, and – he could smell her, too. His eyes caught sight of a gold strand on the floor of the shower. He bent to pick it up, gazing at it for a second in a moment of most illogical sentimentality, before dropping it in the bin. After a moment's thought he threw the towels in the laundry chute too, and replaced them with fresh ones. Perhaps there would be lipstick on them, or makeup. Had she left here with her face natural, her hair unstyled? Had she used his brush and stood before his mirror trying to make herself look presentable?

He shook himself from these drifts of sentimentality and looked around the bathroom again for signs of her presence, but he couldn't see any other evidence of her being here. He had never done this before – never had an encounter that he had tried to keep secret. Jim, he knew, would spot the signs of a woman being in here almost without trying. Without even speaking to him about it – just by looking at him – he would know who, and why.

He stepped into the shower, and let the cool water run over his hot skin. It was a glorious feeling. He reached for the soap – and fumbled and dropped it. He reached for a cloth, and dropped that too. Finally he found a brush belonging to the captain that had a strap to put his hand through, and with shaking fingers he applied some of the captain's shower gel to it. He scoured away the salt of his sweat and the crusted remnants of semen and saliva, finding a perverse pleasure in the pain of the bristles on his sensitive skin. Perhaps some would call this evidence of a good night. It felt odd to him. He had never been so abandoned in his behaviour to do such things, and especially to do such things and then just sleep without any form of cleansing between.

Another wave of need flooded over him and he pressed his forehead against the shower screen, a low moan escaping his lips. Just touching between his legs to wash had aroused him. He had to force himself not to bring himself the relief he craved. It was illogical to even try. He knew from the past week of experience that it would not help anyway.

Oh, this was becoming interminable. He would promise anything to T'Pring just to gain relief. He would give her his inheritance, his title. She held his mind in thrall, and it was intolerable.

'Spock…'

He almost jumped out of his skin, the shock causing him to snap, 'Can I not have the slightest privacy?' He clenched his fists, trying to shake the red confusion out of his mind. 'I – apologise, Captain,' he said in a more controlled voice. 'I am not myself.'

'You weren't answering your intercom,' Kirk said with the tone of voice reserved for the sick – the sick of mind more than the sick of body. 'We're half an hour from Vulcan. I wanted to see you were on top of things.'

Spock heaved in breath, turning to see that his captain was standing with his back to the transparent shower screen, resolutely staring at the wall.

'I have been *_trying*_ to get *_on top of things*_, as you say,' Spock said, a part of him registering the school-boy humour of that statement considering earlier events with Miss Chapel.

He turned the shower off and stood in the dripping silence. What was it about this time that just stripped layer upon layer of dignity from him, to the point that he was standing naked in the shower in a state of arousal, with his captain just inches away through a clear pane of glass? What would come next would only be worse. Losing control in front of an assembly of Vulcan dignitaries… Behaving like an animal in heat with a woman he had not seen since he was seven… Two thousand years of Vulcan civilisation, a lifetime of control over his body and mind, and everything was reduced to the whim of a handful of chemicals surging in his veins.

Jim reached forward for a towel, then handed it awkwardly around the screen to Spock, keeping his eyes firmly averted. Spock dried himself off, then wrapped the towel securely around his waist. Thankfully his captain's presence had acted like cold water to his arousal, and he stepped out of the shower with minimal embarrassment.

'I thought you might need help to shave,' Kirk continued. 'I know you use a real razor, and with your hands shaking like that…'

'Yes, thank you,' Spock said distractedly. He hadn't even thought of that. Appearing on Vulcan with his face covered in nicks and cuts would not have been a good idea.

'You think you can hold still for me?' Kirk asked, turning towards the shelf where Spock kept his small amount of toiletries. He glanced back at Spock, registering his distraction, and said, 'I'll tell you what – I'll use mine. Less chance of cutting you that way.'

Spock nodded, and sat down on the closed toilet lid, trying to stay composed as Kirk carefully shaved the stubble from his face, and then dried and brushed his hair. There was a certain indignity in allowing his captain to perform this service – but perhaps not his best friend, the one who he intended to request as his *_lak noy*_, the best man to his upcoming betrothal. Indeed, it was traditional for him to perform just this service. In the haze he had forgotten.

'Do you need my help to dress?' Kirk asked in a tone of concern.

Spock stood up slowly. He lifted his hands, assessing the trembling. 'Perhaps,' he nodded.

'Will you be all right to beam down?' Kirk asked in concern as they walked through to Spock's quarters.

Spock locked eyes with him. 'I must be.'

'These clothes here?' Kirk asked, picking up the neatly folded uniform from the chair by his bed.

Spock experienced a moment of indecision that would usually be settled almost before he was aware of it. Did he wear his dress uniform? If this were a traditional human ceremony he would be, certainly. But the thought of wearing that starched, restrictive tunic, in his condition and in Vulcan's heat, was abhorrent to him. Would it be disrespectful to T'Pring to appear in regular uniform? Did he care?

'Yes,' he murmured finally. 'Yes, those clothes there.'

They smelt of her… He could smell her scent as Kirk unfolded the top and trousers. Could Jim smell it too, or was it just his current hypersensitivity that made smells like solid walls, sounds like sonic booms, sights and touch an overwhelming jumble of stimulation? Kirk didn't react to the scent of her perfume – it must just have been him.

'Do you need anything, Spock?' Kirk asked carefully as he helped the Vulcan dress. 'A drink perhaps – something from my quarters?'

'That – would not be helpful,' Spock told him. The tremors were running down his back, down the backs of his legs, through the bones and nerves of his arms. The closer he came to the end of this the harder it was to control it. Alcohol would only lessen the small amount of control he had.

That scent was driving him crazy… He could barely see through the red mist that had descended in his brain. 'Another,' he muttered, stripping the clothes off with clumsy fingers and stumbling to the laundry chute. It wasn't until all the clothes had disappeared into the wall that the scent cleared and he could think again, and he realised that he was standing naked in his cabin with Kirk staring at him through bewildered eyes.

'I – cannot wear those clothes. They smell,' he forced himself to explain.

Although that was barely explanation enough, Kirk simply nodded, and found a new set of clothes, helping him to dress again with inexhaustible patience.

'Better?' Kirk asked. There was a note of humour in his voice, as if he thought Spock was being amusingly eccentric.

Spock nodded mutely. These clothes smelt of detergent, and the inside of his drawers – but thankfully not of *_woman_* or of Christine or anything like that. He sat heavily in the chair behind his desk, closing his eyes and resting his forehead down onto his folded hands on the desk.

'Spock, are you all right?'

He almost screamed, *_Shut up – just let me be_*, but instead he took a moment to calm the completely irrational surge of anger, and said carefully. 'I need a moment, Captain – to compose myself.'

'Of course,' Kirk murmured. He had obviously seen that near loss of control, but he said nothing about it. When the intercom beeped he answered it instantly, saying in a low voice, 'Kirk here. Make it quick.'

'Five minutes to Vulcan orbit, captain,' Uhura's smooth voice replied.

Spock didn't know if they were deliberately only having Uhura use the intercom to his cabin, but he knew if it had been Sulu's low voice or Chekov's accent he would have broken yet another intercom point. He pulled in a deep breath, and struggled to calm his mind again.

Kirk waited in silence, until finally Spock straightened up, his face rigidly composed into a controlled mask.

'I am ready, Captain,' he said. If he concentrated he could even stop his hands from shaking.

'Just a moment,' Kirk said, going to the door and pressing the button to open it. 'Bones, come on in here.'

Spock stiffened, a sense of betrayal flooding through him swiftly, before he managed to quell it with the rationale for McCoy's presence. McCoy came through the door with his scanner already held out before him, and Spock drew in breath, forcing himself not to object.

'Just bear with me, Spock,' McCoy said in an unusually kind tone. 'I have to see you're fit to beam down.'

A tremor of panic ran through him. 'I *_must*_ beam down,' he said in a low, dangerous voice. 'You cannot prevent it.'

McCoy arched an eyebrow. 'As CMO, I can – but I'm not going to. The aim of this jaunt is to get you well. I just need to see if you need medical assistance on beam down or not.'

'I do not,' Spock said flatly, clenching his hands behind his back.

'No, I can see that,' McCoy said, analysing his readings. 'Have you been meditating, Spock?'

Spock shook his head stiffly. He would have paid for the ability to meditate over the last week, but he had barely been able to sit still long enough even to begin.

'Well, I'd say two days ago, you were *_this*_ close to having a heart attack,' McCoy said, measuring about half an inch between his finger and thumb. 'Now, I'd say you're about *_this*_ close,' he said, widening the gap a little.

'Perhaps – my proximity to Vulcan,' Spock said carefully, aware that lying or misdirection often failed dismally with Dr McCoy. The doctor only nodded. He knew so little about this condition, Spock realised, he could tell him almost anything as long as it was plausible.

'And talking of Vulcan,' Kirk said in a more buoyant tone. 'Come on, Spock. We'd better get up to the bridge.

Spock nodded stiffly, silently grateful at the change of subject.

'So let me understand this,' McCoy said in an undertone as they left Spock's quarters. 'When you beam down, you have some kind of prearrangement with – a lady?'

Spock nodded silently, keeping his eyes fixed firmly ahead of himself, not least to keep his mind focussed on control. No matter how far he had broken down in his quarters, out here he was the First Officer of the _Enterprise_, and he had a standard of dignity to maintain.

'And you have to – er – ' McCoy trailed off, looking surprisingly embarrassed for a doctor.

'Yes,' Spock murmured.

'We don't have to – '

'*_No_*, Doctor,' Spock said swiftly.

An awkward silence fell, but it was clear that he would have to bring himself to talk about this – after all, he did intend that the doctor stay at his side through at least the preliminary stages of the ceremony.

They stepped into the turbolift and Kirk twisted the handle on the wall, ordering, 'Bridge.'

'It is obvious that you have surmised my problem, Doctor,' Spock said awkwardly, trying his hardest not to have to look at the man. 'My compliments on your insight.' He turned his attention to Kirk instead. 'Captain, there is a thing that happens to Vulcans at this time,' he began, focussing his eyes intently on the crack between the lift doors. He was having to hang onto the handle just to keep himself grounded in the moving chamber. 'Almost an insanity, which you would no doubt find distasteful.'

'Will I?' Kirk asked. There was a look of humour on his face. Spock had to acknowledge that most of his behaviour over the last week smacked of insanity. 'You've been most patient with my kinds of madness.'

'Then – would you beam down to the planet's surface and stand with me?' he asked in an unusually hesitant tone. 'There is a brief ceremony.'

'Is it permitted?' Kirk asked curiously. The Vulcans were not known for their openness to outworlders, especially at their oddly logic-free ceremonies.

'It is my right,' Spock said, still keeping his gaze rigidly on the doors. 'By tradition, the male is accompanied by his closest friends.'

'Thank you, Mr Spock,' Kirk said. A look of pride had suffused his face, but he thankfully refrained from any gushing sentimentality at that statement.

Finally Spock forced himself to look directly at the doctor. He had treated McCoy abysmally over the past few days – he knew that. 'I – also request McCoy accompany me,' he asked carefully.

McCoy looked at him with a naked surprise on his face that was swiftly replaced with honest friendship. 'I shall be honoured, sir,' he said.

******

They were obviously late. Even as they entered the bridge Uhura was saying, 'Captain. We're standing by on Vulcan hailing frequencies, sir.'

'Open the channel, Lieutenant,' Kirk said quickly, and Uhura touched the correct buttons, barely having to look away from the three officers. Everyone on the bridge was obviously alive with curiosity about this unorthodox diversion to Vulcan.

'Vulcan Space Central,' Kirk said clearly. 'This is the USS _Enterprise_ requesting permission to assume standard orbit.

'USS _Enterprise_ from Vulcan Space Central.' Even though the voice was that of a stranger, it sounded wonderfully familiar to Spock. It was Vulcan, and as such it was home. 'Permission granted. And from all of Vulcan, welcome. Is Commander Spock with you?'

Spock steeled himself to speak. He had to keep himself steady. It would just be another few hours now, before the beginning of the end.

'This is Spock.' Inwardly he was surprised at how very normal he had managed to sound.

'Standby to activate your central viewer, please.'

The turbolift doors opened. Even though Spock did not move a muscle to look he knew instantly that it was Nurse Chapel. No. Christine. After what he had done he had to think of her by her given name. After all, it was the one request she had made of him.

His eyes were fixed on the viewscreen before him, but he could feel her just behind him, to his left. He could not allow himself even the tiniest reaction. Every biological instinct in his body was urging him to break down and rush to take what he needed. It was even more imperative now that he remain controlled. He heard her ask something, but it was as if his hearing was muffled with water, and he could make out none of her words.

The sight of T'Pring on the viewscreen almost threatened to twist his mind in two. It was *_her*_ - the representative of cold, pure, unemotional Vulcan, the one that his mind was joined to, the one who offered a place for his lust, who set him on fire, who chilled him to the centre of his body with her perfect logic.

'Spock, it is I.'

Her voice was like a single note on a musical instrument. Clear, resonant, perfect – and completely lacking in melody. Spock matched it with the lack of emotion in his own voice, sounding off the ritual phrase that he had learnt thirty years ago and never forgotten.

'T'Pring, parted from me and never parted, never and always touching and touched. We meet at the appointed place.'

'Spock, parted from me and never parted, never and always touching and touched. I await you.'

Spock was almost startled at how void she had made that phrase. For a moment the cold thought ran through him, almost instantly dispelled, that he could not bear to spend the rest of his life joined with this woman.

She faded from the screen, leaving him suddenly conscious of the humans around him. Then Uhura spoke.

'She's lovely, Mister Spock. Who is she?'

He did not want to speak. But it was vastly illogical to deny the truth, so he said flatly, 'She is T'Pring. My wife.'

The shock ran through the bridge – but most of all he could feel it from *_her_* - the shock, the betrayal, a crashing wave of sadness – all emotions he could not acknowledge, but desperately wanted to. It was no use now. His fate was set in stone. He was facing irrevocably toward Vulcan, and he could not turn around.

******


	3. Part 3

Rating: 18

Pairing: Spock/Chapel

Part 3

The transporter beam released him into the searing heat of a Vulcan afternoon. The heat cradled him, washed around him, reflected up from the glittering sand and beat down from the sky. To some extent it even reached through the layers of tissue to calm the aches and tremors deep down in his bones. He looked around. It was so long since he had been here that the place was almost unfamiliar to him – but deep in his memory it was like coming home.

The transporter operator had done a paramount job in setting them down just outside the arena. They had an advantage on the wedding party, who would be processing to the ceremonial grounds on foot. He walked forward, his feet crunching on the bright, volcanic sand. He stepped up to the entrance to the arena, standing on the wide stone slab that paved the entrance way, almost fearful of stepping down into the circle and acknowledging that this tremendous change in his life had begun.

'This is the land of my family,' he said. He wasn't sure why his voice sounded so hollow, but he could not deny that it did. 'It has been held by us for more than two thousand Earth years. This is our place of Koon-ut-kal-if-fee.'

He made himself step down, walking carefully to the centre of the arena to where the ceremonial gong hung. The aching in his joints was intensifying, threatening to take him over. He had to use two hands just to remove the hammer that hung beside the gong. Somehow he was remembering what he had to do, step by step. He remembered standing here as a seven-year-old beside his father, awed by the solemnity of this place, being shown exactly how the ceremony would proceed and what was required of him. He had imagined this happening perhaps when he was in his early twenties, imagined T'Pring waiting for him, beautiful and stately. He had not imagined his life changing.

He struck the gong, and waited. He could already hear the bells in the distance, the sound shimmering through the thin air.

He walked back across the hot sand to the two humans. They looked simultaneously awed and bewildered by their surroundings.

'The marriage party approaches,' he said. 'I hear them.' He felt too tired for this. He could only hope that once they arrived things would proceed quickly.

'Marriage party?' Kirk asked in confusion. 'You said T'Pring was your wife!'

'By our parents' arrangement. A ceremony while we were but seven years of age,' Spock said, wondering how to explain this most Vulcan of things. He had not realised how little his friends actually knew about his home world. Jim looked almost in awe of him. 'Less than a marriage but more than a betrothal. One – touches the other in order to feel each other's thoughts. In this way our minds were locked together, so that at the proper time, we would both be drawn to Koon-ut-kal-if-fee.'

The sound of the bells was creeping closer. Spock walked across the sand again, to the fire pit in the centre of the circle and the gong that hung above it. This time he was steady enough to take the hammer down with just one hand. He struck the gong again. Somehow he was remembering all that he had to do. Perhaps he would manage to get through this with minimal embarrassment.

He watched the party enter impassively. As he had suspected, T'Pau was at the head of the procession, borne aloft on an antique sedan. He wondered if Sarek had had a hand in this. He had not expected his parents to be present at this ceremony – not after all that had passed between them – but it would be very like Sarek to organise this most proper of ceremonies for his son.

He barely looked at T'Pring as she entered. He had to keep himself focussed. Now that she was in his presence he was at risk of letting the barriers crumble. He *_hated*_ this particular facet of Vulcan biology, that bound him so inextricably, so physically and sexually, to this one person whom he did not know, did not love, had no other connection to. She was there, with her perfect body and her perfect mind, and all every cell of his body wanted to do was take her away and satiate himself with her. But he *_did not*_ love her. He did not like her. How could he let himself be intimate with this stranger?

He had to clear those thoughts from his mind. He was walking towards T'Pau, his hand automatically lifted in greeting. She would sense everything in him – every doubt, every spark of anger and resentment – unless he calmed himself sufficiently and regained control of his mind.

When her fingers touched his face they felt startlingly cold. He knew he was burning, but he had not realised quite how much hotter he was than normal. He was used to being warmer than the humans around him.

She sensed everything in him, despite his efforts at hiding it. He should have expected such mastery from the most important woman on all Vulcan. What he also expected from her was discretion – and she was perfectly discreet. She said nothing about his doubts, about the naked turmoil in his mind, the shameful sexual longing. She even brushed over the recurring image in his mind of blonde hair and blue eyes.

All she said when she lowered her hand, just as he had expected, was, 'Spock, are our ceremonies for outworlders?'

'They are *_not*_ outworlders,' Spock said earnestly. 'They are my friends.'

She gave him a look that was almost reproachful. Presumably she had grave doubts about his taste in friends.

'I *_am* _permitted this,' he said.

She beckoned them over. He had the sense as he introduced them that he had brought scandal right to the very centre of Vulcan society. Not a person present had expected *_humans*_ to be allowed here.

'Thee names these outworlders friends,' T'Pau said. 'How does thee pledge their behaviour?' she asked curiously.

'With my life, T'Pau,' Spock said, with the utmost sincerity. He felt as if he was about to break down from the strain of controlling the fire within him. If he had had less dignity – if he had thought it would help – he would have pleaded with T'Pau to just let the ceremony proceed.

When T'Pau spoke again she spoke directly to the two humans, with the authority of almost two centuries of age. 'What thee are about to see comes down from the time of the beginning, without change. This is the Vulcan heart. This is the Vulcan soul. This is our way.' And then finally, *_finally*_, she pointed at the centre of the arena, and raised her voice for all to hear. 'Kah-if-farr.'

He walked across the arena. He didn't want to strike the gong. He didn't want to seal this thing, to make himself one with T'Pring until death. But, simply, he *_had*_ to. He would die if he did not.

He raised the hammer – and then suddenly T'Pring was standing before him with her hand outstretched, saying in a perfect, clear voice, 'Kal-if-fee!'

Spock stared at her in amazement. Did she know through the bond about what he had done? Could she smell her on him, sense her somehow? A myriad of emotions ran through his head. Most of all he was *_furious*_ at T'Pring for doing this to him. Surely she understood that this was his *_life* _she toyed with?

He moved towards T'Pau in desperation. His controls were breaking down fast. Surely she would act? Surely she would force T'Pring to reason?

But one of T'Pau's guards stepped forward, lowering his razor-sharp blade between them. He dropped the hammer and moved away to the side of the arena. If he had felt out of control before, it was nothing to this. The blood-fever rushed over him like a wave. He pressed his fingers together, trying desperately to suppress it enough to just let him *_think*_. He was dimly aware of a commotion, of people talking, Jim and McCoy's more emotional tones cutting through the calm Vulcan voices. And then T'Pau was saying to him;

'Spock, does thee accept the challenge according to our laws and customs?'

He managed to nod, but that was all. He could barely open his eyes. The bells rang again. The sound was like someone scratching at the inside of his brain. If anything was going to drive him mad, that would. Then something more important cut through. He could hear T'Pring talking, and suddenly Kirk's name was being spoken. The shock of it pushed the fever aside, just a little – just enough to let him walk, to make his way to T'Pau.

He forced his vocal cords to work. 'T'Pau.' His voice sounded as if he had not drunk water in days.

'Thee speaks?' T'Pau asked in astonishment.

'My friend does not understand,' he grated. He *_had*_ to, somehow, make her realise the import of this.

'The choice has been made, Spock,' she said impassively. 'It is up to him now.'

'He does not know,' Spock pressed. 'I will do what I must, T'Pau, but not with him! His blood does not burn. He is my friend!'

'It is said thy Vulcan blood is thin,' T'Pau said in a brittle voice. 'Are thee Vulcan or art thee *_human*_?'

That kindled rage in the centre of Spock's chest. He was so close to the edge anyway, and she chose to *_taunt*_ him for his human blood!

'I burn, T'Pau,' he growled, low in his throat. 'My eyes are flame. My heart is flame. Thee has the power, T'Pau. In the name of my fathers, forbid. *_Forbid*_!'

There was silence. She stood there in silence. He may as well have been pleading with one of the stone columns that stood about the arena.

'T'Pau. I plead with thee! I *_beg*_!'

She reacted, but only to scorn him. 'Thee has prided thyself on thy Vulcan heritage,' she said dismissively. 'It is decided.'

Spock stood still on the sand, desperately trying to control his raging mind as they tied the sash of combat around his waist, trying to force some clarity into his thoughts that would allow him to see Jim before him, and not just a masculine threat to what he craved. He stepped up onto the plinth. He was sinking deeper and deeper into the plak tow, losing all consciousness of everything but his immediate surroundings and the heat in his body and the desperate need to *_fight*_ and then to mate.

Then he was aware of the lirpa being set in his hands. He was aware of the blazing heat around him and in him, and of the overriding need to lay flat anything that stood between him and what should be his. He could smell the scents of another man, the familiar human scent of sweat. And then the bells released him, and he was fighting, and the only things that were swimming in his thoughts were the mixed images of blonde human hair and blue eyes, and dark, sleek Vulcan hair and that precise body that lay beneath that silver dress. And then suddenly he was standing bent with dead weight hanging from a strap in his hand and T'Pau's command to cease cut through madness, and he was standing staring down at Jim's still, lifeless face.

A voice spoke in his head. It spoke very clearly, as if it needed to be sure that he heard it. It said, *_Jim – is - dead_*.

The blood-fever washed away as if he had been doused in ice. The voice spoke again, saying, *_I have killed Jim_*, and everything he had ever been taught was brought together to control this one surge of nameless, terrible emotion that was threatening to pull him to his knees. It was all he could do through the clenching control to make his joints work so that he could move. He was aware of McCoy saying, 'Get your hands off of him, Spock!' wrenching his hands away from the strap, pushing him away from Jim, then saying, 'He's finished. He's dead.'

He stumbled away. *_He's dead*_. McCoy had said that. Jim was dead, and it was by his hand…

He untied his sash. It felt exceptionally soft in his fingers. The colour was more vivid than he remembered when he put it on. Was this what death did? Did it heighten the senses until they burned in one's mind? Did it numb a person to the living around him, and make him only aware of inanimate objects?

He handed it almost blindly to one of the attendants. He had no place here any more. He could hear McCoy arranging the beam up. He was barely aware of him moving to stand in front of him until he spoke. All he could see was the bright gold of Kirk's top, and the stillness of the chest it covered.

'As strange as it may seem, Mr Spock, you're in command now,' McCoy said. Despite the tone of his voice, there was an odd gentleness in his eyes. 'Any orders?'

He wasn't sure if he could speak – but when he opened his mouth he found that he could, with bizarre ease.

'Yes. I'll follow you up in a few minutes.' He could barely bring himself to look at the doctor. His eyes kept slipping back to that golden chest as if they were magnetised. 'You will instruct Mr Chekov to plot a course for the nearest Starbase, where I must surrender myself to the authorities.'

He couldn't look when the transporter hummed. He couldn't bring himself to watch the substance of Jim's body dissolving into nothing.

What would he do? There were concessions in Vulcan law to excuse actions carried out during pon farr – but there were no such concessions in Federation law. He did not want to be forgiven for what he had done. He had ended the life of the single individual in all of his acquaintance who was closest to him. If he was taken by the authorities and sentenced to life in a Federation penal institution it would be less than he deserved.

He moved toward T'Pring, still riven with shock. He could control his voice. He could control his expression and his muscles, his arms and legs. But he did not think he could control the feeling inside that every part of him was falling apart.

'T'Pring.'

She stepped toward him

'Explain,' he said.

'Specify.' Her voice was completely untroubled by emotion.

'Why the challenge, and why you chose my captain as your champion?'

'Stonn wanted me, I wanted him,' she said. That was her perfect logic. Obviously she thought it required no further explanation.

Spock glanced at the bulky, silent man who stood just behind T'Pring.

'I see no logic in preferring Stonn over me.'

'You have become much known among our people, Spock,' she said in that soft, perfect voice. 'Almost a legend. And as the years went by, I came to know that I did not want to be the consort of a legend. But by the laws of our people, I could only divorce you by the kal-if-fee. There was also Stonn, who wanted very much to be my consort, and I wanted him. If your Captain were victor, he would not want me, and so I would have Stonn. If you were victor you would free me because I had dared to challenge, and again I would have Stonn. But if you did not free me, it would be the same. For you would be gone, and I would have your name and your property, and Stonn would still be there.'

'Logical,' Spock said. 'Flawlessly logical.'

She inclined her head. She thought it was a compliment. She had forgotten that the beauty of the IDIC was in part due to its single flaw – the hole that pierced the circle, off centre.

'I am honoured,' she said.

He turned to Stonn. There was no point in speaking further to T'Pring. Despite any eloquence he and she each possessed, there was no hope of either really communicating to the other.

'Stonn,' he said flatly. 'She is yours. After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting.' He shook his head. 'It is not logical, but it is often true.'

For a brief moment, T'Pring looked ashamed. He had no time for her shame. Despite all that he had done – or perhaps because of it – he felt immensely more wise and grown up than these two standing in front of him.

He opened his communicator, and said, 'Spock here. Stand by to beam up.'

He moved over to T'Pau. The aged Vulcan was as stoical as the rest of them – but she at least looked at if she understood what had just occurred.

He raised his hand in the Vulcan salute, and said by rote, 'Live long, T'Pau, and prosper.'

'Live long, and prosper, Spock,' she said. Was that sympathy in her voice? He decided that it must be. One of the most revered Vulcans of his time must at least understand sympathy. But still, she didn't seem to understand the vast repercussions of what had just occurred.

'I shall do neither,' he said with toneless honestly. 'I have killed my captain and my friend.'

He moved away. He moved over to that very spot where Kirk had lain before the transporter took him, where Spock had choked the breath from his lungs and McCoy had lowered him gently to the sand. He opened his communicator, and gave the order to beam up. He did not imagine he would ever see Vulcan again, but at that moment in time he did not care.

******

He almost stumbled as he materialised in the transporter chamber. He had never felt the transition from weightlessness to solid matter quite so strongly as today. The transporter chief gave him an odd look at he stepped down from the platform. It was not surprising. He was sure that some strangeness must show on his face. His clothes were covered in dust and sand. And the captain… Of course. *_Jim…*_

He left the room swiftly, without acknowledging the transporter operator's words – whatever they were. He moved along the corridor. It seemed as if he was still, and everything else was drifting past him, as if he was on a moving walkway. He was in a bubble, shut away from reality. *_Jim*_. The only person who had ever made him feel that he was not alone. The one person who did not question his blood, his motives, his very existence. His *_friend_…*

He paused in his step, gathering himself. He had to control himself. For a moment, for one brief moment, he wished that he was human, so that he could fall into another person's arms and gain comfort. But who would wish to comfort him? In every crisis, he would look to Jim. And now…

He imagined how it would be. How would it proceed from this point? He would present himself to Mr Scott. He, of course, was the most senior officer on the ship now. He would be taken to the brig. He would sit there for the four point seven-two days that it would take to get to the nearest Federation starbase. He would be transferred to the brig there, and would not see the _Enterprise_ again. He would, very quickly he imagined, be tried. He would offer no defence. He had no defence. He would be convicted. He would be moved to a penal institution. He would live there, and die there, in intolerable captivity.

But he found himself walking into sick bay.

He walked through the door with his hands clasped behind his back, still rigidly maintaining control. Both McCoy and Chapel were there – both of them went to him as he walked across the room. He could barely look at them. His shields were so strongly enforced that he could barely even feel their welling emotions. He was having trouble enough controlling his own weaknesses, without exposing himself to those of others.

'Doctor,' Spock said flatly. 'I shall be resigning my commission immediately, of course.'

'Spock, I – ' McCoy began.

'So I would appreciate your making the final arrangements,' Spock continued.

It was hard enough even to speak, without the doctor interrupting. There was something odd about the expressions on their faces, but he couldn't tell what it was. He found human emotions so hard to understand at the best of times. Was this the human way of expressing grief? And McCoy tried again, repeating, 'Spock, I – '

'Doctor, please, let me finish,' Spock said quickly. 'There can be no excuse for the crime of which I'm guilty. I intend to offer no defence.'

They were positively smiling now. He did not understand. He did not have the energy to try to understand…

'Furthermore, I shall order Mr Scott to take immediate command of this vessel – '

Then Jim said, 'Don't you think you better check with me first?'

Spock spun. 'Captain!'

Jim walked around him into the room. He had the kind of smile on his face that made the room feel instantly full of sunshine. Suddenly the emotional dam burst, but instead of misery flowing out, joy did instead. 'Jim!'

He grabbed hold of Jim's arms, feeling the solidity of them, the warmth of them, the reality of bone and muscle under his clothes. Suddenly he could feel the joy of everyone in the room, and he understood those looks on their faces when he had been trying to talk to them. He realised that he was smiling in a way that he had not done since he was a child, a way that made his cheeks ache.

He looked up at McCoy and Christine, control snapping back into place as he saw their expressions. He took in a steadying breath.

'I'm – pleased – to see you, Captain,' he said carefully. 'You seem – uninjured. I am at something of a loss to understand it, however.'

'Blame McCoy,' Kirk said, nodding his head carelessly at the doctor. 'That was no tri-ox compound he shot me with. He slipped in a neural paralyser. Knocked me out, simulated death.'

'Indeed,' he said. He was still having to clamp down on the welling relief and joy. His eyes slipped to Christine. There were unspoken tomes that he needed to share with her.

McCoy turned to her too, saying, 'Nurse, would you mind, please?'

She looked at him briefly, but it was hard to decipher her expression. He turned to her as she left, moving towards her, but she did not look back. This was the wrong place, the wrong time, for explaining himself to her. He turned his attention back to Kirk and McCoy. They seemed wholly unconscious that anything had happened – that anything *_could*_ happen – between him and the nurse.

'Spock, what happened down there?' McCoy asked eagerly. 'The girl? The wedding?'

'Ah, yes, the girl,' Spock said. Such a dismissive term for one so totally possessed of her own logic and motives. But perhaps it was best to dismiss her – he certainly did not want to have any further association with her. The biological attraction had slipped from his mind almost as soon as he had stared down at the captain's lifeless face.

'Most interesting,' he said. 'It must have been the combat. When I thought I had killed the captain, I found I had lost all interest in T'Pring. The madness was gone.'

He waited for them to demand further information – to know why a biological instability that had almost killed him had disappeared so swiftly and so easily. There were biological explanations, of course – the huge release of adrenaline during the fight, the physical shock of what he had done. But he did not believe he would be standing here now in this state of sanity if it had not been for Christine Chapel.

The intercom whistled, saving him from any further explanation, and Kirk turned swiftly to answer it.

'Kirk here.'

Uhura's smooth voice answered. **'**Captain Kirk. Message from Starfleet Command, top priority.'

Kirk met Spock's eyes in brief surprise. **'**Relay it, Lieutenant.'

'Response to T'Pau's request for diversion of _Enterprise_ to planet Vulcan hereby approved. Any reasonable delay granted. Komack, Admiral, Starfleet Command.'

'Well, a little late, but I'm glad they're seeing it our way,' Kirk said, looking up at Spock and the doctor. 'How about that T'Pau? They couldn't turn her down.' He switched the channel. 'Mr Chekov, lay in a course for Altair Six. Leave orbit when ready. Kirk out.'

Spock looked back to the doctor, realising that he was staring at him unwaveringly. The look was invitation enough for him to speak.

'There's just one thing, Mr Spock,' McCoy said pointedly. 'You can't tell me that when you first saw Jim alive that you weren't on the verge of giving us an emotional scene that would have brought the house down.'

Spock raised an eyebrow. 'Merely my quite logical relief that Starfleet had not lost a highly proficient captain,' he said smoothly. It was gratifying to have recovered his ability to speak smoothly – to *_think*_ without conscious effort.

'Yes, Mr Spock. I understand,' Kirk said warmly.

'Thank you, Captain,' Spock nodded.

'Of course, Mr Spock, your reaction was quite logical,' McCoy nodded.

'Thank you, Doctor,' Spock said, turning with Jim to leave the room.

'In a pig's eye!' McCoy muttered as they turned their backs.

They both swivelled to face him, displaying mock indignation. Spock knew there was no point in arguing – he had no argument to give. There was no way he could pretend that his reaction had been anything but a manifest outpouring of relief and joy at his friend's wellbeing.

Kirk saved him, saying, 'Come on, Spock. Let's go mind the store.'

Both men walked to the door, leaving to go back to their duties as if there had been no biological interruptions, no near-death combat or immersion into the deepest mysticism of Vulcan ritual. McCoy stood still for a moment, shaking his head – but then he suddenly dashed into the corridor after the pair.

'Hey, wait up a minute,' he said indignantly. 'I haven't discharged you yet – either of you.'

Both Spock and Kirk turned on their heels, Spock with a raised eyebrow that would send most people scurrying away muttering apologies.

'Don't give me that, Spock,' McCoy continued. 'Your body chemistry's been all over the place for a week. I can't just let you walk back onto the bridge without checking you're all right.'

'I assure you, I am,' Spock said firmly.

Kirk looked sideways at him, assessing the pallor of his face and the dirty smudges of Vulcan sand all over his uniform and skin.

'No, Bones is right, Spock,' he told him. 'Go on – let the doctor do his scans, and take the next two days off. Hell, if nothing else, you need a shower.'

'You too, Jim,' McCoy said firmly, nodding his head toward the door behind him.

'Me, Bones?' Kirk asked innocently. 'You've checked me over. I'm perfectly – '

'You were clinically dead for sixty-seven seconds. You're not pulling a shift as if nothing had happened – I need to monitor you for at least two hours, maybe three.'

'Bones, I was just paralysed!' Kirk protested as McCoy began to escort them back to the ward.

'Yes – all of you, including heart and your lungs. You were dead, Jim – there's no two ways about it. And you, Spock – you've had a hell of a shock.'

Kirk and Spock exchanged a glance. The trauma was evident in Spock's eyes, despite what he might say to the contrary. Simultaneously, each began to say to the other, 'He is right…'

Kirk laughed briefly. 'Well, if you think I need monitoring, and I think you need monitoring – I guess we'd better go be monitored.'

'Nice to see you listen to your doctor,' McCoy said grumpily. 'Jim, come into the ward and get comfortable. Spock, I want you to go through to the examination room. I'll send a nurse to draw bloods and take some preliminary readings while I set up the monitors for Jim. Then I want to do a full physical on you.'

Spock nodded briefly, turning without further argument through the door into the examination room.

*_She_* was there… She was standing with her back to him, busying herself by rearranging medicines in a cupboard, with her arms held up above her head and the sky-blue hem of her skirt lifting just a little higher than was respectable. He could not help drawing in a sharp breath as a faint tremor of need ran through him. Obviously there were still remnants of his condition that required management.

She turned at the noise, and almost dropped the bottle she was holding.

Spock cleared his throat. 'The doctor sent me to get blood tests,' he said, trying to keep his voice as level as possible, moving forward into the room as if Christine's presence had no effect on him.

'I see,' she nodded, struggling to keep the same professional façade. 'If you'd like to sit – '

'Thank you,' Spock murmured, seating himself in the chair she indicated.

A long silence followed, as she spent more time than Spock imagined was necessary rummaging in cupboards for what she needed.

'I assume hormone levels, and so on,' she said crisply, without turning.

'Yes, I assume so,' Spock nodded.

'The doctor thinks seeing your – wife – didn't eradicate the problem?' she asked, with a world of meaning loaded behind the question.

Spock swallowed, then said in a low voice, 'Technically, T'Pring was never my wife. I was far below the age of consent when we were bonded. There is no validity in law until the Koon-ut-kal-if-fee.'

Christine didn't reply. He could see a change in the set of her shoulders, but he had no idea how to interpret it.

'I have never wanted T'Pring,' he continued softly.

She turned and came over to him, holding out a medical scanner towards his chest.

'Your heartbeat's a little elevated,' she said, studying the readings intently.

Spock looked up, his gaze trailing up her body before meeting her eyes. 'Does that surprise you, Christine?' He waited a beat, then said quietly, 'I have not touched T'Pring since I was seven years of age. That did not change today.'

'Then you didn't – ' she began, a note of hope cutting through the studied professional detachment in her voice.

'I believe I had killed the captain,' Spock said, rather sharply, then added, 'No, I did not.'

'Oh,' she said slowly as she pressed a hypo to his arm and drew out a vial of dark green blood. She took the vial across the room and placed it into a scanner. She stood silently studying the results as they appeared one by one. 'Well, Dr McCoy will want to put that sample through a more exhaustive examination, but the hormone imbalance seems to have corrected itself.'

Spock looked at her curiously. 'But trace amounts remain,' he said confidently.

She looked at the results again. 'No, Mr Spock. I can't see any trace amounts with this preliminary scan. Perhaps the exertion of the fight exhausted them.'

'Oh,' Spock said, his eyes resting on the pleasing curves of her form as she bent over the scanner. He stood slowly, moving closer. If it was not the hormone imbalance making him look at her in this way, then – 'It is curious,' he began, 'how a situation with very few possibilities can open one's mind to possibilities one has never allowed before.'

She turned, bewilderment in her eyes, and he wondered for a moment if she was going to say, *_I don't understand*_, as she had before. He found himself curiously eager to explain what he meant.

'Well, that's often part of the process of science,' she said finally. 'If one's ruled out the probable, whatever's left, however improbable – '

'Must be the truth,' Spock finished for her. 'I remind you that Conan Doyle was not a scientist.'

'Perhaps not,' she said dryly. 'But I happen to think he was right.'

'I cannot deny the logic of his statement,' Spock nodded. 'Then – the reason for my elevated heartbeat and my increased respiratory rate – '

'You have just been involved in some highly physical activity, which would logically lead to – '

'_*Christine_*,' Spock said with a degree of terseness. 'It is unlike you to be obtuse.'

She looked up at him, meeting his gaze. His eyes suddenly seemed to have become magnetic, forcing her to hold eye contact. 'Oh…' she said slowly. He was standing a little closer than was normal. She could feel the heat from his body, even through his clothes.

'You – er – you are showing some bruising on your torso,' she said, trying to keep herself focussed, to keep her voice steady and professional.

'Yes,' he said. His voice seemed to have dropped an octave. 'I should let you – '

'See to it – yes,' she murmured as he stripped off his shirt and undershirt. She sucked in breath as she saw a dark bruise blossoming over the left side of his chest, the sight of it recalling her sharply to her duty.

'It does not hurt,' he assured her.

'It should,' she said, moving her scanner over him. 'You've cracked a rib.'

Spock touched a hand to his side, looking down in surprise. He had felt nothing all this time – he had been overwhelmed with grief, with the effort of controlling himself. Presumably he had also pushed the pain aside. Suddenly he was aware of multiple aches through his body, and of sheer exhaustion in his bones. He sat down abruptly.

'Right, that's it,' McCoy said from the door.

Spock's head snapped up as if he had been caught stealing.

'Broken ribs, bruising, exhaustion. You're taking the next forty-eight hours off, Spock,' he said. 'And light duties for a week after that.' There was no sign that he had noticed anything unusual occurring between Spock and the nurse. 'Christine, can you do his physical?' he continued. 'I need to keep an eye on the Captain. Hormone levels, organ stress, fatigue level – er – fractures, bruising, internal injuries. Oh, and give him a lecture about undue exertion with a broken rib waiting to rip a hole through his lung.'

'Yes, Doctor,' she said in her most professional tone. Her eyes slipped back to Spock as McCoy left. 'You heard the orders,' she said in a light tone, engaging the privacy lock on the door. 'Strip down to your underwear, and up on the table, please.'

Spock moved to obey almost instantly, his eyes lingering on her as he moved.

'What?' she asked curiously.

Spock blinked. 'You are unduly attractive when you speak in that tone,' he said honestly. 'I find myself more inclined to obey you than I do Dr McCoy.'

'Well, I am glad I have some attractions over Leonard,' she said. She let her eyes linger on his body as he removed his boots and trousers. Finally she could do it openly and honestly, instead of slipping glances and trying to veil her interest behind professional detachment.

Spock climbed onto the examination table, and rested back on the black cushioned surface.

'It seems I will be taking some time off,' he said, focussing his eyes intently on the ceiling. 'Perhaps this evening I can show you how to make quiva bread. It goes exceptionally well with plomeek soup.'


End file.
